“By the way, sir,” the Inspector inquired before beginning to read, “is there any reason for keeping back this information? These infernal reporters are all over me for details; and if this poison affair could be published without doing any harm, I might as well dole it out to them to keep them quiet. They haven't had much from me in the last twenty-four hours, and it's better to give them what we can.”
Sir Clinton seemed to attach some importance to this matter, for he considered it for a few seconds before replying.
“Let them have the name of the stuff,” he directed at last. “I don't think I'd supply them with any details, though. I'm quite satisfied about the name of the drug, but the dose is still more or less a matter of opinion, and we'd better not say anything about that.”
Flamborough glanced up from the report in his hand.
“Markfield and the London man both seem to put the dose round about the same figure—eight milligrammes,” he said.
“Both of them must be super-sharp workers,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “I don't profess to be a chemist, Inspector, but I know enough about things to realise that they've done a bit of a feat there. However, let's get on to something more immediately interesting. What did you make of the Hailsham girl?”
“What did I make of her?” Flamborough repeated, in order to gain a little time. “I thought she was more or less what I'd expected her to be, sir. A hard vixen with a good opinion of herself—and simply mad with rage at being jilted: that's what I made of her. Revengeful, too. And a bit vulgar, sir. No decent girl would talk like that about a dead man to a set of strangers.”
“She hadn't much to tell us that was useful,” Sir Clinton said, keeping to the main point. “And I quite agree with you as to the general tone.”
Flamborough turned to a matter which had puzzled him during their visit to the Institute:
“What did you want young Hassendean's notebook for, sir? I didn't quite make that out.”